Comparing Wireless Flooding Protocols Using Trace-Based Simulations

Most wireless multi-hop networks, such as ad hoc networks and wireless sensor networks, need network-wide broadcasting, which is best done with a flooding protocol. In this paper, they use packet trace information from a real test-bed network to define a simulator for flooding protocol performance studies. Five protocols are compared using the simulator. Trace-based simulations promise to have the benefits of the simulator, such as reducing required work effort and repeatability but still produce results close to the real test-bed or deployment. They propose and evaluate different approaches on how to use collected trace data and how to tune the parameters to achieve the best possible accuracy in comparison with actual test-bed measurements.